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     Gobar times: Environment for Beginners

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BUSTING   BLUFFS

THE MESSIEST CLIMATE CONFUSIONS

CLIMATE CHANGE IS A MYTH

Climate change is inevitable because of past and current emissions. After 150 years of industrialisation, global warming has momentum, and it will continue to affect the earth's natural systems for hundreds of years more. According to United Nations Framework for Climate Change, here are few of the current evidences of climate change…


Extra-strength weather

Numerous long-term changes in the climate have been observed, including extreme weather such as droughts, heavy precipitation, heat waves and the intensity of tropical cyclones.

Frequency of heavy precipitation events has increased over most land areas. For instance, in eastern parts of North and South America, northern Europe and northern and central Asia. There is also evidence for an increase of intense tropical cyclone activity in the North Atlantic since about 1970.

Drying has also been observed over large regions, i.e. the Sahel, the Mediterranean, southern Africa and parts of southern Asia.

In Africa's large catchment basins of Niger, Lake Chad, and Senegal, total available water has decreased by 40-60 per cent. Desert­ification has been worsened by lower average annual rainfall, runoff, and soil moisture, especially in southern, northern, and western Africa.

The Rhine floods of 1996 and 1997, the Chinese floods of 1998, the East European floods of 1998 and 2002, the Mozambique and European floods of 2000, and the monsoon-based flooding of 2004 in Bangladesh are examples of more powerful storms.

The decline of winter

Average Arctic temperatures increased at almost twice the global rate in the past 100 years. Temperatures at the top of the permafrost layer have generally increased since the 1980s by up to 3°C. In the Russian Arctic, buildings are collapsing because permafrost under their foundations has melted.

Snow cover has declined by some 10 per cent in the mid- and high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere since the late 1960s. Mountain glaciers and snow cover have declined in both hemispheres and widespread decreases in glaciers and ice caps have contributed to sea level rise. New data evaluated by the IPCC shows that losses from the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica have very likely contributed to sea level rise from 1993 to 2003.

The average global sea level rose at an average rate of 1.8 mm per year between 1961 and 2003, but between 1993 and 2003 it rose by 3.1 mm per year.

Almost all mountain glaciers in non-polar regions retreated during the 20th century. The overall volume of glaciers in Switzerland decreased by two-thirds.

Shifts in the natural world

Scientists have observed climate-induced changes in at least 420 physical processes and biological species or communities.

In the Alps, some plant species have been migrating upward by one to four meters per decade, and some plants previously found only on mountaintops have disappeared.

In Europe, mating and egg-laying of some bird species has occurred earlier in the season -- in the United Kingdom, for example, egg-laying by 20 of 65 species, including long-distance migrants, advanced by an average of eight days between 1971 and 1995.

Across Europe, the growing season in controlled, mixed-species gardens lengthened by 10.8 days from 1959 to 1993. Butterflies, dragnonflies, moths, beetles, and other insects are now living at higher latitudes and altitudes, where previously it was too cold to survive.

So, there is no denying that climate change is real.

GLOBAL WARMING MEANS JUST RISE IN TEMPERATURE

Global warming is not merely a rise in temperature. It will be accompanied by changes in climate. It will alter aspects like cloud cover, precipitation, wind patterns, and the duration of seasons. Even the minimum predicted shifts in climate for the 21st century are likely to be significant and disruptive. All these will affect the lives and livelihoods of the people, as millions depend on weather patterns, such as monsoon rains.

It will melt the ice sheets, which would raise the sea levels. This would cause more severe storms and floods along the world’s increasingly crowded coastlines. It would also change wind, precipitation, and temperature patterns.

The amounts of precipitation in high latitudes would increase, but decrease in most sub-tropical land regions.

A general reduction in potential crop yields in most tropical and sub-tropical regions is likely. Desertification will further disrupt food supply around the world.

Salt-water intrusion from rising sea levels will reduce the quality and quantity of freshwater supplies, and contaminate underground water sources.

Most of the world's endangered species may become extinct over the next few decades as warmer conditions alter the forests, wetlands, and rangelands they depend on.

Higher temperatures would also expand the range vector-borne diseases, such as malaria.
 
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